Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Meursault and Marie
One thing that I did not like about The Stranger was Marie and Meursault’s relationship. For one thing, Marie is a totally likeable, empathetic character, which in my mind means she should have nothing to do with Meursault. She is caring and kind, a good person, and Meursault seems to only be attracted to her physical beauty. She dotes upon him constantly, and all he ever mentions about her is her physical attractiveness. He seems genuinely interested in nothing else but sex in regards to her, while she wants to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him. It is really quite painful reading about her and Meursault. She seems to enjoy life and is really upbeat, quite unlike Meursault. She sticks with him through the long, long trial and tries to support him. In spite of this, Meursault doesn’t want to marry her but is willing to do it pretty much for the hell of it; he doesn’t care. Even after he is an ass about marriage, she sticks with him. She puts up with all of his shit, staying by his side, and he is only interested in the fact that she is pretty. This relationship really makes it hard for me to say I enjoyed the novel, and it wiped away any chance of me feeling sympathetic towards Meursault.
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2 comments:
It is a little weird how much she likes him. Doesn't logically follow at all; I wonder what Camus's trying to say with that?
The closest we get to any indication of what she sees in this guy (and the stereotype of the exotic, detached, cool/silent dude who treats women badly but is still inexplicably totally attractive to them may only exist in film and literature) is when she "mumble[s] that I was peculiar" and "that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might hate her for the same reason" (42). (And this is in response to his cool reaction to her suggestion of marriage.) Doesn't really clear anything up, does it?
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